Level Ground
by WriterEl
Summary: Post S2E10. Mac has trouble figuring out how to work through his recent perceived failure. He has friends that are trying their best to watch his back.
1. Chapter 1

Hi folks- This is my first attempt at writing fan fiction. I figured this would be a good forum for developing my narrative writing skills. With that said, critical feedback is welcome both for technical problems that you see throughout and/or just overall flow to the story line. I tried to be true to what I think the 'Macgyver Reboot' world to be like according to the series, but I didn't dig too deep with any research or anything so be gentle in that regard.

In this post S2E10 follow-up, I wanted to delve a little deeper into how various members of the team try to keep one another balanced out after having to cope with so many run ins with high stake/high pressure events. People handle stress differently and I wanted to humanize Mac's reaction to some of the most recent events.

Anyway...feel free to let me know where you think I can improve. I enjoy reading other stories in this forum very much. You all are an inspiration!

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 **Level Ground**

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::Macgyver::

He was tired.

Somehow the flickering of the city beyond his back deck was oppressive tonight. All of his own lights were off and the air felt cool and heavy. When had the sun gone down? How long had he been standing just outside his back door watching….nothing? His mind felt thick and his thoughts so unclear that life in LA below him could blink out all together and he wouldn't even notice.

He was just so tired.

Mac had always hoped for a time that he could come home after a failed assignment, pull in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and shuffle off the weight of all his past decisions. Deep down though, he knew that that time would never come. His mind just wasn't capable of coping in such a way despite the constant stress of the job. Instead it played and replayed every action, every word, every idea over and over and over seemingly determined to tear itself apart with the 'what ifs'.

Tonight he needed some sort of relief, any relief, but he couldn't think of a single damn thing to do.

Instead, all he could hear was an all-consuming silence. Not the calm quiet of introspection, but the harsh cutting silence of something lost. The silence of water finally shorting out a microphone 9,000 miles away. The silence in the War Room as he sat there alone some 30 minutes later. The silence of the hallway shortly after as onlookers watched him leave, not making eye contact with or acknowledging anyone along the way.

His world was suddenly and painfully cast into a feeling of isolation and it was just so quiet. His chest felt empty as he drove himself home, barely registering that he was even doing so.

That was where he found himself now, standing on his back porch in the dark not quite sure of the order of events that had brought him to his current state.

Drowning is such a quiet death on the part of an observer. This in deep contrast to the panicked internal screaming of the one actually drowning. Lungs screaming, mind screaming, an ache to be alive despite the all-consuming absence of oxygen.

Zoey must have felt so afraid and so alone. Mac's own heart ached for her. If only the radio batteries had sparked the detonator as planned, if only the ice hadn't forced a slow buckling squeeze against the side of the ship causing all the icy water of an ocean to breach the hull, if only he had more time to think. If only... if only... if only.

She had done everything right. She had been steady, composed, and had followed every direction to the letter only to have her successes crippled by the uncontrollable and unforgivable force of nature. It was all so unfair and cruel.

Was it fate, or was it something he had missed?

In this moment, all he could see was the image of her struggling as the last few inches of the ships compartment filled. The memory of the ensuing silence triggered the image to repeat yet again.

His heart was pumping well beyond a normal pace and he vaguely registered that his breathing was shallow and fast, but he couldn't bring himself to focus on the here and now. All he could focus on was Zoey's death playing over and over in his minds eye.

She was a mirror image of himself in nearly every way. In the short period of time they had known one another, he felt as if he had found one of his kin. Such a rare thing it was for him, sharing a likeness with another person. It made one feel as if there was place for you in the ageless clockwork of time. Like there was a purpose for being the way he was.

While the discovery of such a likeness brought a thrill to Mac earlier on that day, the death of Zoey mere hours ago now just shone a blinding light on the acute pain of his aloneness. It had always been there, but the feeling managed to stay buried beneath the surface of his subconscious. Now it was fully exposed and raw.

His body and mind felt like an over powered light bulb whose filament was about to snap and burn out in one final flare. His failure was unbearable.

Mac could feel himself approach some sort of final breaking point. As if he could perceive himself perceiving, he watched himself from a distance.

He watched as his fist clench around a tumbler of water he hadn't even realized he had poured. He watched as he took two steps towards one of the large bay windows where he could face his own reflection staring back, silhouetted by the city lights behind him in the night.

What came next he felt powerless, or perhaps just apathetic to stop.

In a paradoxical state of pent up energy and emptiness, he swung the tumbler with all his strength directly at his reflection's form and straight through to the other side.

The explosion of glass was deafening.


	2. Chapter 2

::Macgyver::

It took a few moments for him to realize what he had done after the ringing in his ears died down. Did he feel shock? Anger? Anything? He slowly brought himself back up to a state of situational awareness.

At first he couldn't understand why his hand felt warm, nor why the sounds of the space around him had suddenly shifted. Then his eyes finally took in the destruction.

The force of the tumbler and his fist swinging through the window had fractured the pane into several plates that, as gravity pulled them to the floor, multiplied into a thousand shards that flung themselves across the adjoining room. If it weren't for the present circumstance he would say the result looked strikingly beautiful, like so many stars strewn across a dark sky as the ambient light reflected off the myriad of sharp edges.

His appreciation was short lived as his attention turned to the wetness he felt running down his forearm. His hand suddenly didn't seem to be working properly. He tried again to close his fingers, but what was initially numbness immediately transformed into pain. There were several gashes both on his palm as well as to the back side of the hand. His arm had thankfully only sustained minor cuts.

He let out a deep breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding and something akin to relief washed over him as he took inventory of his injuries.

This was now a solid problem.

Something that could be faced and solved.

Mac welcomed the clarity despite the somewhat shameful act that had brought it about. He could chastise himself about whatever outburst this was later. Right now he needed to get his hand cleaned up in order to see if he the injuries were minor and something he could stitch up, or more significant that would force him seek treatment.

God he hated hospitals, but he was a bit worried about the weakness in his grip. He hoped he hadn't nicked any tendons.

He stepped through the space of the broken window and walked through the open room towards his part of the house feeling the glass crunch beneath his feet as he did so. If he was lucky he could get the window repaired before Bozer returned from his academy work. This certainly wasn't something he cared to bring up as a talking point.

When he reached the bathroom he flipped on the light and started the hot water in the sink. He stood there for a long time letting the water run over both his hands allowing the warmth against his skin further ground him to the present.

His heartbeat was finally starting to slow.

As he looked in the mirror he realized he had beads of sweat running down his temples. He didn't remember feeling hot, but it looked as if he'd run a marathon. He looked awful. He dipped his head under the tap in an effort to alleviate some of the stickiness and tried to figure out what he should do next.

That was when he heard a noise. It was a quick rap on the front door immediately followed by the booming voice of Jack as he announced his arrival.

Immediately Mac's stomach dropped like a stone and his mind caught fire trying to come up with a plausible explanation for the scene surrounding the deck window.

And his hand….. Damn it.

Jack wasn't going to like or understand this at all.


	3. Chapter 3

::Jack::

Mattie had called Jack earlier that afternoon. The fact that she had called rather than texted hadn't immediately raised any red flags for Jack, but as soon as he heard the tone of her voice he knew something had gone wrong with Mac's assignment. She requested his presence, but in typical 'Mattie has bad news' fashion, didn't tell him much beyond that. As per usual, her policy of not delivering sensitive news via phone unless absolutely necessary left him hoping for the best, expecting the worst, and hating that period of not knowing as he made the 30 minute drive over to the foundation.

Upon arrival to the office, he made a quick sweep of Mac's usual hangouts and quickly realized that his partner was already gone. With a mental sigh he continued on with his original task of navigating the corridors that lead to his boss's office near the heart of the building.

The atmosphere at Phoenix somehow seemed subdued, though Jack knew much of that could probably be chalked up to his own mood. His boy Mac was a superstar here at the foundation, but the organization did a good job of keeping individual assignments pretty hush hush regardless of whether it was a win or a loss. If not for national security, then for the sake of the agents themselves. There was always going to be a loss for the foundation at some point, and the organization (aka Mattie) was very aware of how much space and privacy a person needed to fully process the bad times. Not many people here likely even knew what had happened behind closed doors today and that was a good thing.

This event was quickly shaping up to be one of those bad times.

As he walked the halls, Jack couldn't help but worry about his partner before he had all the facts laid out before him. Whatever had happened, Mac didn't deserve the guilt, blame, or whatever the kid had decided to bear fully on his own shoulders after today. For a 26 year old (still a kid in Jack's mind) Mac took on a world of problems well beyond his years.

Jack knew the intense training with the Army as an EOD tech was partially responsible for the unusual degree of competence and maturity Mac displayed, but it was obvious to anyone that worked with the guy that the majority of the young man's drive seemed to just be an ingrained trait. The kid was a genius and the kid had heart.

Though he would never embarrass his partner by saying it out loud, Jack was in fact in total awe at what that boy could do with his brain under stress. He was also aware that people, consciously or otherwise, put an extremely high level of trust in and pressure on Mac's ability to get the job done because of this. The kid was a complicated thinker and Jack had realized early on in their friendship that overthinking was definitely going to be a problem, especially in the realm of Mac's over heightened sense of responsibility.

Ever since the kid had charmed the pants off Jack during during their mission together in Afghanistan, Jack had taken it upon his 'good ol' papa bear' self to help provide some sort of guidance and outlet to the kid's emotional states. Jack did not and would never be able to understand Mac's big brain in any analytical capacity, but he had a bead on Mac's heart. Even in the initial stages of their friendship in Afghanistan, it was clear to Jack that the kid tended to focus all his energy towards solving external problems. That left him with an underdeveloped methodology of how to solve internal problems. More than once that left Mac blindsided by his own emotions when all the action finally died down.

That was where Jack could step up to the plate and provide some of his good ol' mentorship. Something he had learned straight from the mouth of the best man he'd ever known- his Pops. Jack actually prided himself in his ability to keep a certain balance to his and others emotional states. Keep it light, but keep it real was his motto. Bad things happen, but there is always a way forward.

He was lucky to have his Dad keeping him on the right track when things were tough growing up. He could sense that Mac on the other hand, did not have that kind of input.

Jack could see clear as day that the kid could get bogged down too much in his own mind and start losing track of which way was forward. The worry of course, was that one day, the kid would get pulled under.

Jack would be damned if he let that happen.

It frustrated the Ex-Delta to no end that others tended to assume that Mac was some sort of unstoppable force that could handle anything the world threw at him. Mac put enough pressure on himself without others feeding into that sense of 'I can and must save the world and everyone in it'.

In fact Jack had talked several times to Mattie about it and, although she was quite receptive and understanding, she also had to drive the hard line that Mac, despite being young, fully understood the responsibilities of being an agent. He was in essence a tool that she must use to save lives whether he took a few hits or not.

The compromise he and Mattie eventually struck concerning the young genius's well-being was to keep Dalton as Mac's permanent partner for all assignments. Mattie recognized that Jack too was a tool, and in this case it was to make sure Mac didn't turn into a pressure cooker that reached some sort of critical meltdown point.

Mac was Jack's priority one.

Jack very much liked the idea.

Today though, something in Mattie and Jack's meticulously laid safety nets had failed. When Mattie finally debriefed him about the R.V. Bancroft situation in her office, his heart hurt for the kid.

Jack should have stuck around to see the job through to the end with Mac rather than get so distracted with Elwood and his thug acquaintances. He had let himself fall into the same 'The genius cannot fail' trap that he had been so critical of everyone else for. He had mistakenly let his guard down since there were A. no bullets flying B. no crazed psychopaths or militia leaders plotting and C. no bombs hidden in any dark compartments ticking. There was little danger involved at all…..so it had seemed.

It was just Mac hanging out with some graduate students via videocom solving problems like the champ that he was. In fact Jack thought the assignment was a win for the kid. He finally had an audience that would understand the way his brain worked. People that he could finally geek out and speak the language of nerd. In a sense, discover what it was like to interact with like-minded people his own age.

How could this have gone so wrong?

* * *

::Jack and Mattie::

After reviewing all the background files for both the research vessel and the student scientists on board, Jack finally went through all the video feed using Mattie's office computer. It was frankly tough to watch. After the video ended, he decided that he had a pretty good grasp of what Mac had gone through earlier that day.

He stood up and ran his fingers through his buzz cut trying to clear his head and began re-stacking the borrowed reports.

"Thanks Mattie'.

The small statured lady watched him gather his things to leave, a look of concern pulling at her features. In a voice much softer than her usual authoritative barking, she stopped Jack in his tracks with "I'm sorry this happened".

The simplicity of the statement as well as the moment of silence following the comment spoke volumes.

"Please take care of him Jack. He's really going to need your steady shoulder to prop him up on this one. Let me know the second I can help with anything. Understand?"

Jack read all the underlying emotion behind Mattie's eyes and nodded. The kid had lots of friends in his corner, it was just tough as nails to reach him sometimes.

"You bet boss. I'll do my best to get our boy back onto level ground. Thanks again."

With that Jack turned and began his return trip to the parking lot.


	4. Chapter 4

Hello again-

Thanks for the kind feedback. Here is another installment. I'm going to try to switch gears out of inner monologues into outer monologues here pretty soon, so I'm hoping to use the type of lingo I feel each character would banter about. There will likely be a few days between this chapter and the next as I haven't really started much writing on #5, so...patience I suppose, but I'll get' er done as soon as I can. Thanks again!

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::Jack::

He sat there behind the wheel solemnly for a few minutes trying to come up with the best approach for reaching out and getting a read on how his partner was feeling.

To generate the appearance of keeping things low key, Jack decided to stick to the usual post-mission routine of grabbing a cold six pack, dressing down into his most comfortable Black Sabbath, Metallica, or NIN T-shirt (really whatever was in the clean clothes pile) and heading over to Mac's to put in some 'Brewski time'. He could decide whether to make it a movie night, cooking night, or deep conversation night depending upon what state he found the kid.

Broaching sensitive topics like these sometimes needing easing into with his partner. Mac wasn't a particularly closed individual, but sometimes the guy barely knew what he was feeling much less how to express it, so Jack generally tried to let the his partner set his own tempo when it came to bro-to-bro talks. Jack just made sure he provided ample company to allow the young man to open up when he felt like it.

Mac seemed to do better that way.

::Jack::

The Dodge Challenger pulled into Mac's driveway with little more than the purr of the engine cutting out giving it away. As Jack stepped out, he froze. Something was wrong and Jack was immediately overcome by a feeling of unease.

Mac's car was parked in the usual spot, but all the lights in the house were off. His partner almost always left at least a porch light on. This of course being a joint agreement they made after Jack tripped over Mac's DIY projects strewn about the yard for what seemed the thousandth time during one of his frequent, unannounced late-night visits. Afterwards Mac would quip that he agreed to the light just as much to save his projects from Jack as it was to save Jack from a broken ankle. Jack just enjoyed the chance to give Mac a hard time about his nerd play-pen.

Tonight though, was a far cry from any gentle ribbing between the two amigos. The absence of the porch light meant trouble.

Jack grabbed his personal Beretta from under the Challenger's driver side seat and secured it in the back of his waist band. One of the hazards of being a top-secret agent whose best friend was another top-secret agent is that members of the opposite team can sneak up on you at any time anywhere. Including a place of residence.

Precaution was a necessity in their line of work.

He quietly made his way to the front door trying to listen for any signs of Mac in trouble or otherwise.

Sensing no movement, he decided to make a bold move by sticking with his usual entrance style- a quick hammering on the door followed by him barging in and hollering some witty announcement of his arrival. Despite the façade of careless bravado, Jack was indeed on high alert.

His signature over-the-top greeting was met with more silence and Jack's internal alarms immediately went from DEFCON 4 to a full blown DEFCON 1. Mac usually answered with one of his snarky comments about Jack not respecting any sort of personal space, guest rules of engagement, etc. The lack of any acknowledgment at all tightened up Jack's nerves like a live wire.

It was then that he noticed a curious movement to the air of the kitchen, as if an outside door had been left open somewhere else in the house. Jack started his inner mantra of 'This is not good, this is not good, this is not good' as he strained to hear any signs of life.

Jack gently placed the beers down onto the kitchen counter and pulled his Beretta out from beneath his belt as he began to assess the current space for threats. After clearing the kitchen, he cautiously made his way back towards the deck area.

Just as he was about to call Mac's name again, gently this time, his breath caught in his throat.

One of the panes of the large bay windows overlooking the city below had been broken inwards, leaving glass shards everywhere. A thousand horrible scenarios raced through Jack's mind as real fear started to burrow it's way down into his gut.

Suddenly a light turned on in the room and Jack swung around fully prepared to fire at any oncoming hostile.

"Hi Jack" was all Macgyver said with barely a flinch at the weapon trained directly at him.


	5. Chapter 5

Hi folks-

Whew...this is so much fun, but tough tough tough. Mad props to all you publishers out there that do this routinely. You're awesome.

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::Jack and Mac::

"Mac! What the hell brother? Are you ok? What the hell happened here?" Jack was flush with both adrenaline, relief, and more than a bit of confusion.

It then hit him how awful Mac looked. "Jesus. Is the house secure?"

After Mac gave a somewhat dismissive nod, Jack finally lowered his weapon and placed it on the bookcase next to him, wiping his brow on the sleeve of his shirt as he did so.

"Damn son, you had me sweatin' bullets."

Jack slightly bent at the waist and pulled in a few deep breaths trying to work his way out of adrenaline mode. With his head still down, he flicked his wrist towards the couch as a signal to Mac.

"You look like you need to sit down man and while you're at it, how about you let your best amigo in on what happened at your little party here. You know I hate not gettin' invites."

With uncharacteristic lackluster Mac mumbled something about being tired and not wanting to deal with any of this tonight. Both his partner's tone and the fact that the kid hadn't made a move for the couch wasn't lost on the older man.

"What?" Jack said aloud, somewhat distracted as he had already turned his attention to the damage surrounding the window. None of this was adding up and he was still at an absolute loss as to what had played out here.

It was then that he laid eyes on an irregular slick of something dark staining the wood of the deck just outside.

He slowly straightened back up to his full height. His mind, which had been racing like a greyhound only moments ago, suddenly went very still. He knew blood when he saw it, and that blood was very much still wet and thus very recent. A cold feeling bristled the hairs on the back of his neck as he started to actively take in the details of what he was seeing.

With the room now fully illuminated, he could easily follow a trail of red crossing the threshold of the window and leading back into Mac's bedroom area. The thought of 'Oh Mac, what have you done?' crossed his mind. He couldn't help but visibly wince as a dull tightening pain suddenly wound its way through his ribcage.

He looked back at his friend with a more critical eye and took note of the wet hair. As he continued to scan for the injury he knew he'd find, his eyes finally caught the blood stained sleeve. It was partially covering what looked to be a now saturated bathroom hand towel wrapped around Mac's right hand. The towel itself had started to drip.

He tried in vain to get Mac to meet his eyes so he could ask for some sort of explanation, but the blonde was just looking past the broken window and off into the lights of the city below.

Rather pale and emotionless, the kid finally broke the silence, "Jack, I'm fine. It was an accident. No one else is here. I'm fine, but I don't want to deal with this tonight."

As Jack took in the appearance of his friend, apprehension continued to barrel down on him like a freight train as he started putting 2+2 together, then 4+4, so on and so forth. It was becoming abundantly clear that all this chaos was caused by Mac and Mac alone. The young man was in trouble beyond what Mattie had foreseen. Jack felt sick as it occurred to him that this time his best friend had not just fallen straight through all his safety nets, but he had fallen 1,000 miles past that point.

This time, Jack had let Mac slip down the rabbit hole.

Jack quickly recovered his bearings and tried to clear his countenance of any outward signs of shock he may have let slip as he was assessing his friends condition. It would do neither of them any good if his friend started to clam up due to some overreaction on the older man's part. As Jack looked up again he was startled to see that Mac was now staring straight at him, or perhaps straight through him. It was an unsettling feeling.

Jack took a breath and thought to himself 'Ok son. Let's just take this slow.'

In a slightly delayed response to Mac's last comment, Jack just shrugged his shoulders with his palms out and tried to put on his usual comedic airs.

"Well...Ok Man. As long as wild raccoons don't waltz in here and have a hay-day in your kitchen during the night, I guess the broken window can stay till morning."

Jack could downplay the window, but he was going to have to press Mac about taking a look at that hand.

"What we can't do is let that paw of yours go untreated. I know you haven't been sittin' around idly watching TV while you bleed to death, so fill me in on what you've got going so far in terms of patching yourself up."

Mac visibly sagged and finally walked over to the couch to sit down, purposely trying to remove his injury from Jack's line of sight. He was on the fence as to whether he wanted Jack present right now, so keeping Dalton at an arms-length figuratively speaking would keep Mac in control of if and when he could ask Jack to leave. With that said though, Mac's arm hurt like hell and he felt like he had a hammer wedged in his skull. He really didn't know what he wanted right now.

"I cleaned up a few cuts and the bleeding has almost stopped. I was about to start putting together a fix-it kit when you walked in. Honestly, I can handle this myself."

To Jack, the kid looked unfocused as if he wasn't really talking to anyone in particular in the room- like he was just going through the motions of having a conversation. It was also glaringly obvious that Mac was attempting to blow off his partner, though it felt a little half-hearted.

Jack knew that in order to stay, he needed to figure out a way to establish a working conversation. Just enough of an engagement to get Mac to allow him to check out his hand at the very least. As he was trying to find the right words for his next comment, the blonde beat him to it.

"Look, more than anything I just need a good night's rest, so this is very bad timing for hanging out. Can you just come back in the morning? Please Jack."

At least that last statement was a bit stronger and direct. The Ex-Delta decided to ante-up and get straight to the point.

"I'm sorry man, but I can't hear your excuses for not wanting to hang out with me over the sound of how shitty you're looking at the moment."

He hoped he was pulling off a light, but concerned tone rather than one of pure panic, which was more accurate to what his gut was feeling at the moment. Before Mac could reply, Jack continued.

"The choices we have here are: A. I take a look at that hand and we patch it up together or B. I take a look at that hand and we patch it up together. As you know, I'm a pretty flexible kind of guy, so I'll leave it up to you to decide which path to pursue brother."

It was a gamble whether this tactic of digging in with the intent of badgering Mac into letting him stay would pay off or not.

Mac tilted his head back onto the headrest and started to chuckle with his eyes closed. His hair was starting to dry in a thousand different directions, which gave him the look of someone crashing after a manic episode. His voice sounded on the verge of cracking as, with eyes still closed, he turned his head slightly towards the direction of his best friend.

"There is nothing I can possibly do to get you to leave is there Jack."

Jack couldn't help his eyebrows from immediately shooting up. Mac's reaction was completely contrary to the expected 'five round boxing match' of rationalizations that the kid usually threw at him when being pressed into doing something he didn't like. None of the older man's worry was alleviated by his partner's sudden compliance, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. This was a win. Putting on one of his most charming grins, he silkily replied with " You know me brother... Once I have a beer in the kitchen, I'm not going anywhere."

After a few seconds of the kid just sitting in silence, Jack decided it was time for him to take the lead. He clapped his hands together and belted out, "A.O.K. bud, start listing off some exotic ingredients like battery acid, dental floss, and camel spit and I'll start putting together your so called fix-it kit. Let's get this going 'cause my beer is gettin' warm."


	6. Chapter 6

One more Chapter after this. It's taking me awhile to set the right tones for how I think a deep conversation would go down between the two. I'm also having to contend with doing my actual job during the day, so it's going a bit slow. Enough apologies. Onward...

Cheers- El

* * *

::Jack and Mac::

After what felt like the mother of all treasure hunts, Jack finally sat down across from Mac at the kitchen table ready to take care of the injured hand.

"I just want to tell you Mac, I crawled into the deepest recesses of your bathroom to find some of this stuff. Maybe have these so called fix-it kits pre-made or something for next time, yeah? I feel like a swamp monster after crawlin' through all the cobwebs and soap puddles you've got collecting under your sink."

Mac finished pouring some of the tea he had made while Jack was bemoaning having to rummage through what was actually a very well organized supply closet.

"Jack, you were nowhere near the sink and you've only been gone for 5 minutes- Forever the drama queen."

Jack smiled at that. He appreciated that the kid was trying to pick himself up a bit, but that didn't change the fact that the young man still looked like death warmed over.

Turning his attention back to the task at hand, Jack surveyed his pile of supplies- Iodine, distilled water, superglue, butterfly band-aids, gauze and a nearly empty bottle of Tylenol. A surprisingly conventional collection of first-aid supplies if he said so himself. The older man signaled to his partner that he was ready to start.

Mac, looking tired, self-conscious, and more than a little uncomfortable, finally pulled his injured hand out from under the table and lay it out for inspection. The blonde's gaze was looking everywhere except at the man sitting three feet in front of him.

Jack grimaced as he unwrapped the makeshift bandage and took a look. The bleeding had in fact stopped by this point, but it was looking more and more like some of the more substantial cuts would need closure support beyond what superglue could provide. Mac must be in a world of pain.

"Hey Bud, some of these are going to need a few stitches. You don't happen to have a suture kit that I missed under that nasty bathroom sink of yours do you?"

Mac, who was slouched across the back of his chair at an angle to Jack, shook his head somewhat dejectedly in the negative.

His posture then began to change as he cocked his head and slowly straightened his shoulders back. His attention, which had previously been flitting from one inanimate object to the next, suddenly became focused on some distant point in the far corner of the room. After a few moments of this, he then looked directly at Jack with a look of brightness to his eyes. Jack knew exactly what was coming next.

"No, but I think I know how to make one."

'Yes!' thought the Ex-Delta 'That's right my man. Get that clever brain working again.'

Utterly dead-pan on the outside, Jack arched an eyebrow, "Well don't leave me hangin' brother."

With that, Mac proceeded to rummage through his kitchen drawers finally returning with a candle, some pliers, a sewing needle, and what looked to be a roll of tippet material for a fly line.

Up until a minute ago, the kid hadn't been stringing together more than a sentence or two at a time. Now words began to cascade like Niagra falls out of his mouth. Jack sat back and watched the genius appreciatively as Mac, although still with a haggard edge to his voice, began narrating the step by step details of what he was up to. Jack allowed his soul a big sigh of relief, as this was the first sign that he was actually making progress towards pulling the 26 year old up from the abyss that he had tumbled.

This was the Mac that the older man needed to see right now. The confident problem solver. He loved this part of the job, watching ideas just tumble from his partner's fingertips as he created solutions of pure elegance out of nothing. This is why Jack would jump in front of a bullet to protect the young man now sitting back down across from him. He loved the guy.

Jack was pulled out of his internal musings by his friend tapping the pliers against the table.

"I'm sorry Jack, but you are going to have to be my hands here. Take these pliers and squeeze down on the needle as I work the flame, be gentle though, this is essentially carbon steel wire, so it's going to behave brittly until I get the temperature just right."

Mac continued his oration, setting the science lecture at a quick tempo that Jack usually followed more than he let on- most of the time. To Mac's credit, he was actually pretty good at explaining things.

Taking this current behavior as being the closest thing to normalcy Jack had seen in the last hour, the older man decided to try to alleviate the mood a little more by razzing the kid mid-instruction.

"Wait, what?... Bend the needle to the right curvature specifications?... Just say a fish hook man. Just say, 'Hey Jack, make me a fish hook'. It makes my cranium hurt having to translate your nerd code all the time. It's like listening to that cryptic Morpheus dude talk all side-ways in Blade Runner."

Mac look up at his partner quizzically, "You mean The Matrix Jack?"

"No no, man. It was Blade Runner- So confusing with all that 'You know I know this steak doesn't exist' and 'The spoon doesn't bend' mumbo-jumbo."

This elicited a light chuckle from Mac and an eye-roll that could be seen at twenty paces. Jack felt a flicker of delight in his chest upon making the kid laugh. He liked getting Mac to loosen up. Laughter was about the healthiest activity Jack could think of and his partner needed more of it.

Jack winked at the blonde and with the 'fish hook' ready to thread, got back to work being Dr. Dalton.


	7. Chapter 7

Wrap up time. I tried to not make it too drawn out. I found that I have an easier time describing action sequences, so this took quite a bit of revision to make it sound right with all the dialogue. Hopefully it turned out ok.

Thanks for reading folks!

-El

* * *

Once the injury was treated to the best of his 'non-medically trained' ability thought Jack, the older man rolled back his shoulders to release some of the tension he had accumulated while working hunched over for so long.

He let out a deep sigh as he leaned his elbows back down onto the wood surface and looked at Mac.

"You're gonna want to cut back on the number of high-fives you give out this week. Maybe try out some chest bumps or something. I've been trying to make that a thing at the office all year long and people just haven't quite wrapped their minds around how awesome it would be."

Mac shook his head as he tossed a few of the Tylenol into his mouth, chasing them down with the remains of his now cold tea.

"I can't imagine why Jack. That move's been cool since the Neolithic times."

Jack laughed at that and, stretching his legs out to their fullest extent, settled back comfortably in his chair. He watched his partner tinker with the final knots securing the new bandage. 'Angus', he thought, 'you are going to be the death of me kid'.

The older man rubbed his face with both hands in an attempt to prepare himself for what he knew needed to happen next.

Jack was never one to keep things internalized, no doubt a trait he'd picked up as a kid back in Texas. He and his Dad talked about everything. It got to the point that his younger self couldn't take two steps through the front door of his childhood ranch house at the end of the day without his pops knowing if something was bothering him or not. This had provided Jack with a lifetime of practice expressing himself to those he cared about. The love and gratitude he felt for his Pops because of this was beyond words.

It was now time, Jack mused, to pay-it-forward. The Texan decided that tonight was as good a time as any to open up to his best friend to show the kid how it was done. Jack couldn't risk the young man sliding out of Jack's reach again during the next crisis, or the next, or the next. Today had been too close of a call.

"Mac, I want to tell you something."

Mac looked up. "Yeah Jack, what's that."

"You are my best friend and I owe you for saving my life as well as my sanity a hundred times over. Yes?"

Mac looked up surprised at the sudden shift in conversation. He tried to deflect the compliment with a shake of his head, "No Jack, look you…"

Jack interrupted him by lifting his palms up from the table, "Hang on, hang on… I meant that to be rhetorical kid. Let me finish before ol' Dalton forgets what he's trying to say."

He looked directly at Mac hoping to make the deepest impression possible, "You know I love you 'cause I've told you so after surviving every single one of those countless hairy-ass situations we've found ourselves in over the course of our friendship."

Mac kept an expressionless face that belied the tension that was actually sweeping through him.

The older man let his words sink in for a few moments before starting again, "You are one hell of a class act that I am proud to have as my partner. Because of this, not despite this you understand, I am really worried right now about what I walked into here tonight. You scared me a little. Actually, you scared me a lot."

Jack's tone was no nonsense, but any edginess was smoothed out by his obvious concern.

Mac continued to meet Jack's gaze, but remained silent as he processed what was being said to him. A wetness had crept across the younger man's eyes.

After a few moments Jack nodded, more to himself than anything else, and pushed back his chair to stand. The Ex-Delta hoped that his words provided at least some sort of relief for his partner. At the very least, it made his own mind feel more at ease getting those sentiments off his chest.

The ball was now squarely in Mac's court. Jack was reaching for the kid, but it was up to Mac to grab his hand. The young agent could reciprocate the open gesture by letting Jack in on what was tearing him up inside, or he could let things sit for another day or two. Jack hoped for the former, but it was also clear how exhausted Mac currently felt. If Mac didn't want to talk now, Jack would make another attempt to broach the subject once his partner had had some time to heal up a bit. He didn't doubt that by morning the kid would have a low grade fever in light of today's events.

Mac continued his silence, so Jack picked up his own cup of tea and took it over to the sink.

"All right Bud, to be honest I wouldn't sleep a wink if I tried to go home right now, so how about I take the couch and fend off any of those raccoons that try to make a run at your fridge tonight and we can deal with everything else in the morning."

As Jack headed towards the doorway to go set up the couch, Mac finally spoke up.

"Jack."

The older man turned back, it now being his turn to be a little surprised, "Yeah man?"

"I'm sorry. Sorry for all of this. I…" The kid seemed genuinely at a loss for words.

Jack stayed firmly planted in the space leading out of the kitchen offering to be that proverbial shoulder to help prop the younger man up.

Mac dared a sideways glance over at his friend looking unsure of himself again. With one hand out of commission, he was unable to act out his usual tension relieving fidgeting and it was clearly throwing him off.

'For the want of a paperclip' thought Jack.

Mac resorted to tracing out the nicks and defects that had built up on the wood's surface in front of him instead. He spoke up again.

"I've made a lot of mistakes today and things somehow managed to get away from me." Mac made a quick circular hand gesture towards his temple, "In my head I mean."

Jack leaned a shoulder against the kitchen door frame and crossed his arms looking intently at Mac, but stayed silent. Jack had noticed over the years that his partner tended to flail a little during the initial stages of putting emotions into language. The older man likened watching this process to building a house. Right now Mac was pouring in his foundation and if Jack ran in spouting off a bunch of words and ideas at such an early stage, he would just muddle up Mac's thinking and leave boot prints everywhere. Better to wait for things to 'set-up' a bit more in the kid's head before pitching in to help. And so, he just patiently stayed put.

"I failed an assignment today and it brought up feelings that I wasn't aware I had been...ignoring... I guess is the best way to describe it. And...a friend, I mean a new friend, a client…"

Mac struggled in his attempt to accurately define what Zoey was to him. He resorted to a more factual representation of the events in a vain hope that it would make this next part easier to say aloud.

"A woman died this afternoon because I couldn't save her."

The confession left Mac shielding his eyes with his good hand as he tried to keep a lid on his emotions. Failing to do so, he wrapped his injured hand across his stomach and let out a barely perceptible sob.

"I should have saved her. I know there was a way. I just couldn't see it. I still can't see it."

A streak of a tears rolled down the kid's jawline and he was trying to keep his breathing under control.

Jack, unable to idly stand-by anymore, walked over to Mac's side of the table and put one hand on the refurbished wood and the other firmly on his friends shoulder.

Startled, Mac looked up sharply at his friend before making a quick swipe with the back of his hand across his nose. His eyes were rimmed with red and he was struggling to regain some sort of composure.

"Mac, I have seen some bad things happen to good people in my time. There are some situations that you just can't control. For me, that lesson was a very hard one to learn and it took me a very long time to learn it. Now, I know you're not as old and grey as your time-wizened partner here, but you gotta' believe me when I say that not everything in this world is your fault kid. There are good days and there are bad days, but we aren't always in control of picking which it's gonna be."

He gently squeezed Mac's shoulder for emphasis.

"At some point, it doesn't have to be tonight, tomorrow, or even this week, but at some point you are going to let me in on what went through your head this evening before things went down with that window. Everyone has an end to their tether, but we have to figure out a way to prevent you from reaching yours. I can't be my charming ol' Jack self if I feel like my brother is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. You just don't deserve it man."

Jack stood back up to his full height and gestured for Mac to follow suit. He grabbed the younger man's good forearm and pulled him up into a big bear hug, careful not to put any stress on the newly bandaged hand.

"Mac, I don't know why this big world gets so damn hard sometimes, but I promise you that as long as we have each other's backs, we can keep both our feet firmly on level ground."

"You feelin' me kid?"

Jack could feel the blonde's head nod against his shoulder followed by, "Yeah, I feel you."

Jack landed a few hearty claps to the younger man's back, then released the kid.

"Don't make me watch you slide down some slippery slope into an abyss of your own making alright? I love ya man, and I will always be here for you."

Jack felt like he had said enough. It was time to let everything that had happened up to this point sink in. It would take a few weeks for Mac to slowly pull himself out of this mire he was in, but at least now he knew the way out.

Jack struck his best 'you know me pose' and with a grin he boomed, "So, don't you ever forget that or ol' Jack here will have to hunt you down and make you remember. And you don't want that mi amigo, 'cause I am a BEAST!" He then added at an only slightly more subdued volume, "but right now this beast is tired and needs his beauty sleep. What do ya' say we put this party to bed poncho."

Mac gave one of his lopsided grins and in feigned exasperation shot back. "I have literally been saying that for the last two hours Jack, but you just can't help but talk so damn much."

Jack winked, 'Yeah...you got me there bud."

With that, they both exited the kitchen. Clean-up could be left for the morning.

The end.


End file.
